On Friday evening, we finally got the bikes and gear for our 2nd bike tour. Earlier in the day, we scouted the bike shop and were not encouraged. It wasn’t even really a retail store – more of a scrubby warehouse full of rental bikes, scooters, and motorcycles. But we had a 5pm appointment with Fabienne, tour company representative, and when we met up with her, she quickly put my apprehensions to rest. Fabienne is a French woman, maybe 50-something, and extremely organized. She reviewed our accommodation bookings, the route/map booklet, how to work the GPS device and everything else. We got squared away within an hour.
Officially, our bike tour didn’t start until Saturday morning but we were eager to give the bikes a spin so we rode across the Rhone and made our way to Fort Saint-Andre. This involved a bit of traffic and some google maps confusion, but we got there and were rewarded with an amazing view back across the Rhone of Avignon.
Our current B&B is the Jardins de Baracane which is inside Avignon's city wall. The entry is on a narrow street but opens into a peaceful and pretty enclave.
Today the bike tour started for real. There were four distance options for today; we opted for the longest which was 67km/42miles. We had been warned that the first 10k/6m would be on unlovely streets to get out of town and that was true, but ok with bike lanes and polite enough drivers. Once out of town, we rode through rural roads, sometimes even on paths through fields planted with grapevines. The GPS device is a lifesaver. No way in hell would we have been able to follow this route – that involved many turns on paths with no names - with only written instructions.
I'm optimistic about our biking days to come. It's hot here, but not as hot as it is at home. The bike breeze is fine and all of our hotels have pools for post-ride cool downs. It's all tres bien.
What an adventure!
ReplyDelete